A World Riddled With War
by Crafty Wolf
Summary: A growing tension between the Chinese and US, causing eventual surprise attacks on the US, striking with two nuclear warheads. Unknown events cause few people to end up in a place different from their known. Will they survive in this new environment set before them.


What's A World Riddled With War?

War...War Never Changes…- Sole Survivor

I knew there was growing tension in the world powers, but I least expected war to break out...especially nuclear war. The nation prepared itself for incoming fire, the enemy targeting high priority places, like New York and D.C. Coincidently, I was playing "Fallout 4" that week, and when New York was struck, basically, I was fucked. The explosion itself was only a couple miles away, it was so bright and the aftershock of the blast, blew me to smithereens. So pretty much, I'm dead, or at least, was.

Where am I? I pick up the soft dirt and notice the cool breeze. As I get up, I wipe off the dirt on my clothes, "So, where do I start?" I notice a beaten down path as I walk, " A path, how cliche, but I don't know where else to go." The trees broken and almost void of leaves, the grass brown and crisp. I can only guess it being around autumn, also explaining the cooler temperature. I look into the distance, a few buildings here and there, as well as many ditches, and then I spot something in the bushes, "What's that?" I jog over to it, and see that its hair, and I hear a noise nearby, standing still. A couple minutes go by until it goes away, as if it didn't happen. "Disregarding that...I should probably tend to you." I pick her up and continue walking. I find a somewhat broken down house, and set her down. I try to shake her awake, but nothing happens. Then, I check for a pulse, it's faint, but it's there. I take off my sweatshirt and put it on her, trying to warm her up, considering she was as cold as a stone. "I should try to get a fire started, its getting dark." I try to look around for something to strike, and I find a couple rocks. The grass itself would be a good way to ignite the fire, so I grab handfuls of that too. I set it up the best I can, and I try to get the rocks to spark. Thankfully, a few sparks go off and lite the dry grass. As it does that, I grab a couple planks of wood on the floor and put it in the fire. "I hope this holds well, though, I'm surprised I actually get it to work." I hope she's alright. I roll up onto the floor and try to get comfortable. Sleep hits hard, I'm really tired.

When I wake up, the fire is out and the sun is bright as ever. I check on her, and she's still sleeping, and her breathing is a little more regular and she isn't as pale. I don't have anything else to do, so I think I'll scavenge for a bit. I finally get up and stretch after a few minutes, heading out of the house soon after. I see a couple other houses around, but most of them are in ruins or completely collapsed. After who knows how long, I finally find a stable looking house, and head inside of it. There's nothing much inside of it, mostly just empty cupboards and drawers. However, I find a few bottles of Nuka Cola, carrying the, what look to be drinks, under my arm.

I finally reach 'home'. I set the drinks down onto the floor, then check on the girl. I lie on the ground and take a swig of the Nuka Cola, "Surprisingly good." I hear the girl stir and start to wake up, I walk over to her as she sits up. She says, "Who are you? Where am I?" I simply say, "Name's Josh, how about you?" "Emily, but where are we?" I take a moment and then say, "To be honest, I have no clue where we are. All I know, is that you were alone in the middle of nowhere, so when I found you, I took you with me and made sure you were okay." "I see, thank you. Though you seem familiar, I can't remember all that much though." I notice a couple creeks sounding through the worn out house, and say, "I can't remember much either, but we probably shouldn't stay here much longer, this place seems like it's gonna collapse at anytime. I saw a path going up a large hill, might lead somewhere, can you walk?" She gets up, a little wobbly at first, but replies with a "Yes."

I walk out the front door, her trailing close behind. "So, I may not be the best conversation starter, but you remember anything else?" She doesn't really say anything till we get to the top of the hill, then speaks up after sighing, "No, I can't really remember anything important." I throw a hint of humor to change the mood a bit, "Well, join the club, all are welcome." she smiles a bit, it doesn't stay long, but it's something at the very least. She points at a small structure, it kinda looks like a booth in a way. We continue walking towards it, it had a single window and panel, with a few other trailers nearby, and a big-ass gear looking thing in the ground. Being curious, I go up to the already opened panel, and press the button, unsure if it'd do something or not. The big-ass gear thing released a bit of smoke, and starts to descend. "Hey Emily, come here, let's go down with this gear thing." She jogs over from one if the trailers and stands on the gear with me, it starts descending quicker as it goes 5-10 feet into the ground.

There's just gray walls to look at for a couple minutes, along with less cracks as we head further down, I turn towards her, "So, what do you think these are for? I'm guessing a bunker of sorts." "What else would it be, I mean very few structures go underground like this. Also, I think we reached bottom." She says, as light peeks through the elevator-gear as we go down.

Flood lights shine into the elevator shaft as a gate lifts open, walking up the stairs noticing the signs saying "Vault-Tec." Emily speaks up, "I did say it was a bunker, didn't I." I notice multiple skeletons on the floor and say, "Guess it wasn't a good one then. What could've caused all these people to die?" Her face has a slight frown at the sight of the many skeletons, "Yeah, not a good bunker." She walks over to a box with, I'm guessing, the "Vault-Tec" logo. She picks up a wrapped package of clothing, and wipes off some of the dust. Unraveling the package, it shows up as a blue jumpsuit, with yellow markings around it, most notably, the 111 Vault-Tec Logo. Emily goes around the corner, unable to be seen by me, most likely to change out of her dirty clothes, especially considering the fact that she was in a muddy ditch when I found her. After a few minutes of looking around, I notice another box under a different table. Being curious, I open it up and find a bunch of these devices, the box was labelled "Pip-Boy" on the bottom. I pick one up and press a few buttons, it eventually lighting up in green. I attach the Pip-Boy to my wrist with the clamps, reading the instructions it gave from being booted up. Another screen loads up saying, "Personal Information Processor...Loading," it giving a crash course on how it works and what it does after it finishes loading. This finishes up as Emily finally finds me at the table in the new outfit she put on. I have to admit, she looks good in it. "I'd like if you'd not stare so much, this thing is a little more skin tight than I thought, it's rather embarrassing." I look away, with a hint of red after, "Sorry."

It didn't take long to understand how the device worked, and giving one to Emily as well, we're both somewhat acquainted with it being on the wrist after a few minutes. She picks up on how it works quickly, which helps, I'm not the best when it comes to explaining. Emily decided to find another suit in the other box, she said to keep it for use if my clothes get dirty. The Pip-Boy's inventory system is quite amazing though, it somehow storing things in a way, so I don't have to carry it, but can equip it at anytime. There is a carry weight limit and status menu at the bottom of the screen, which is nice to have. We continue walking through the, what I'm just going to call, a vault, many skeletons and pods in certain rooms. There's an eerie emptiness feeling, like this place wasn't in use for a while. Looking around, I find a black baton that was probably used for hitting something. Hearing skittering things across the hall, I hold the baton, ready to strike whatever it is. Emily following behind, brings up the computer terminals in the other room, but the scurrying stops suddenly and a giant cockroach jumps out and tries to attack me. Jumping to the side and hitting it hard with the baton. The shell sounds like it cracked, its blood leaking out the oversized insect. It stops moving completely after a minute or two, walking into the room with the terminal, Emily walks ahead and tries to turn it on. It takes a second to boot up, like the Pip-Boy, looking over her shoulder, I notice a few entries about the facility. Skimming through it, keywords being, "cryopods, cryolator, vaults, and overseer."

Emily states out after reading the last of the logs, "So basically, they ran cryo experiments on people, and they didn't even know. Next off, there was a few entries about a nuclear war, the land being irradiated. I'm guessing the land is at somewhat safe levels, concerning radiation at least. Also the fact we aren't sick from the radiation yet tells us that it's safe. You'd notice after a day or so if you got sick. These people who ran the vaults, overseers, pretty much were the boss, control over everyone. There also may be a cryo weapon of sorts, somewhere in the vault, though I'm unsure." Wandering further into the vault, there a few more of the roaches, but I kill them for they attack. The Pip-Boy identifies them as Radroaches. It also has another great feature, telling you what you can harvest off things, so I end up taking the insect's meat. In the main menu of the Pip-Boy, I notice a clickable icon labeled, "Special." Opening its tab, I read at the top, "Characteristics and trait abilities that can be learned. Current traits learned are marked. Unspent skill points: 1." The loadout of my current skills seem to match what I can currently do, the 7 major categories, abbreviated with, "SPECIAL." There are many traits to choose from, but I end up taking lockpicking, as it sounded most useful currently. Emily also gained a point, spending it on hacking.

Entering a room that appeared to be the secretary's area, Emily heads straight to the terminal, which requires someone to hack it. There's a few things under the tables, the Pip-Boy labelling it a 10mm gun and 10mm bullets. There is also something called a stimpack, which is put under the Aid section of my inventory. Emily states out loud, "Why would they lock something that only had a game on it, employees not working or something?" She takes a crack at the game, get through the first level easily, but ends up dying on the second one a few times, "Better luck next time I guess." She finds the eject button, saying, "Damn right I'm gonna beat this." I could only laugh at her determination to beat the game.


End file.
